Outdoor Living

Backing proven winners in the world of horticulture

Royale Silverdust.

Photograph by: Handout photo
, Vancouver Sun

In the world of horticulture, Proven Winners is the botanical equivalent of Apple Corporation.

In the same way that Apple has revolutionized the computer and cellphone world with its mind-blowing creative, imaginative design and groundbreaking technology, Proven Winners has changed the way hundreds of our favourite plants are grown and marketed.

In the process, Proven Winners has become the dominant plant driving force in North America and has succeeded at not only changing our perception of plant quality and performance, but has expanded our understanding of how to make better and greater use of plants in the garden.

Twenty years ago, Proven Winners didn't exist. Today, it is impossible to walk into any garden centre in North America and not see tables filled with plants in the distinctive white PW pots with the colourful, deliberately oversized plant labels packed with information, poking out the top.

It all started back in 1992 when three of the largest nurseries in the U.S. - in California, Michigan and New Hampshire - decided to team up and concentrate on growing top-quality plants that had been patiently tried and tested and only then designated as worthy of being marketed as a plant brand.

Only plants that passed the vigorous testing were allowed to be called Proven Winners. Trialling each plant cost about $2,000. This was done both in North America, as well as in Germany and Japan.

Proven Winners expanded the program to include dozens of other nurseries, including many in Canada, with a proven track record for quality control.

But Proven Winners also took one other important step when it decided it needed to safeguard its investment by acquiring plant breeders' rights protection.

This cost about $5,000 a plant, but meant that from that moment, anyone producing or selling the plant would have to pay a royalty.

Another key element to the success of the plant line has been the introduction of white "branded containers" with black PW logo on the side to attract consumer's attention. These pots were introduced in a major way in 2010 and came with a nothing-sells-faster guarantee to growers.

While these were all excellent performers, they cannot hold a candle in the popularity stakes to the star-performance summer-colour plants that were to come, such as Argyranthemum 'Butterfly' (1995), Supertunia (super floriferous petunias in 2001), Superbells (calibrachoa hybrids in 2002), Euphorbia 'Diamond Frost' (2004), and Petunia 'Picasso in Pink' (2010).

Today, there are hundreds of plants in the Proven Winners program, including top-quality series of verbena, nemesia, diascia, osteospermum, coleus, impatiens, lantana, heuchera, ipomoea and sutera.

The program has since been expanded to add all sorts of favourite ornamental grasses, perennials and foliage plants, some of which have been promoted as part of a Fall Magic concept featuring ideal plants for winter containers.

But bestsellers are most improved varieties of old familiar favourites: petunia, nemesia, calibrachoa, osteospermums, lobelia and verbena.

This spring, Proven Winners will introduce 35 new plants, including a new set of dianthus called Fruit Punch, as well as various improved cultivars of some classic perennials and shrubs, including Viburnum carlesii 'Spice Girl', Hydrangea serrata 'Tuff Star' and Buddleia 'Lilac Chip'.

But the most exciting of Proven Winners' new introductions is a series of container plants that provide exceptional summer colour for balconies, decks and small-space patio gardens.

Velvet Skies is an exceptional colour combination being promoted to consumers "who want to include colour and reliable combinations in their outdoor living space."

It brings together Lobularia 'Blushing Princess' with Supertunias 'Mini Silver' and 'Royal Velvet' to create a bright bouquet of colours and textures.

Other highly rated introductions for summer containers include 'Double Plum', a new calibrachoa hybrid, with masses of tightly clustered reddish-purple blooms; 'Lemon Slice', a new calibrachoa (Superbells) hybrid that has bright yellow five-point crosses over white petals; and two striking forms of coleus (Solenostemon) called 'Keystone Kopper' (copper colour leaves) and 'Marooned' (deep burgundy leaves).

For gardeners who love blue flowers, there are two new offerings: 'Blue My Mind' a beautiful evolvulus hybrid, and 'Royale Silverdust', a fragrant blue-purple verbena hybrid.

Both look terrific in urns or vase-shaped containers.

Lobularia hybrids, which are exciting new forms of sweet alyssum, are also being presented as plants for creating fragrant billowing clouds of silver-lavender and white flowers. 'Snow Princess' has white flowers that slowly turn lavender-silver and turn even more lavender in bright light.

'Frosty Knight' produces a continuous abundance of white flowers and is another ideal plant to use in combination with petunias or calibrachoa in full sun.

Two other new sun-loving plants perfect for use in containers are improved hybrids of Lantana camera: 'Pina Colada', which has white flowers, while 'Berry Blend' has pink and yellow blooms.

All of these plants will be available at your local garden centre in May.

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